


Nine Lives

by methylviolet10b



Series: By a Whisker [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff and Angst, Injury, Magical Realism, Other, Prompt Fic, but rather less than in prior installments, unless you're looking very carefully
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 03:36:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7491942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Help and injuries come in many forms. Written for JWP #14: Rehabilitation/Recovery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nine Lives

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Finally a return to this 'verse! Definitely AU. Refers to three other stories, Hot Tabby, Paws for Concern, and Skin a Cat, as well as Jingle All The Way - this will make a lot more sense if you read those first. And absolutely no beta. This was written in a huge rush. You have been warned.

Sherlock had managed to wrestle John onto the couch, and into a set of boxers, before he heard footsteps approaching the door to their flat. Too soon to be Dr Percy (who owed Sherlock enough favours, and was intimidated enough by him, that he would never say anything even if he did notice anything about John’s hair, which, given his general lack of awareness of anything resembling fashion, was unlikely to the point of absurdity), which meant…  
  
“Oh my!” Mrs Hudson bustled into the sitting-room, only to stop short in dismay, staring at John’s bruised face and battered (and mostly naked) body.  
  
“I’ve already summoned a doctor,” Sherlock told her. Not reassuringly, or in the voice that he used when he meant to be reassuring to others, to strangers, because Mrs Hudson would see straight through such stratagems. But he did mean to be reassuring all the same – to her, and also to himself, insofar as he could ever be.  
  
Mrs Hudson blinked, looked away from John and at Sherlock, and nodded. “Of course you have. I’ll just go get a blanket for John – he looks cold – and then I’ll keep a sharp eye and ear out for that doctor.” She glanced down at the floor, marked with water and mud from Sherlock’s own clothes. “And perhaps a mop.”  
  
She hurried downstairs, and Sherlock lost no time in getting the remainder of John’s “disguise” into place. By the time Mrs Hudson returned, Sherlock had a towel over John’s head, ostensibly providing some insulation for the ice pack covering the bruise on John’s face, but in reality masking any view of the faint stripes in the hair on John’s head.  
  
The mop was familiar, but Sherlock didn’t recognize the brightly-coloured knitted throw-blanket Mrs Hudson brought back with her. Judging by the smell of cedar and lavender, it was one of the knitted things she kept stored away, and he briefly wondered why she’d taken the time to fetch this particular item. But as he helped her tuck the blanket around John, he felt how incredibly soft it was, and how amazingly warm for something so relatively lightweight. He shivered, reminded abruptly of how wet and uncomfortable he was. Not to mention sore. John was no lightweight – at least not in human form.  
  
“I’ll keep an eye on John.” Mrs Hudson’s glance was sharp, knowing. “You go change out of those things before you catch your death of cold.”  
  
“That’s a fallacy based on old superstitions and a lack of understanding of disease, germs, and the human immune system,” Sherlock pointed out as he strode towards his room.  
  
He returned in under five minutes, changed into dry clothes and briskly rubbing a towel through his hair, to find Mrs Hudson mopping the floor. He showed his appreciation by not dropping the towel, instead laying it carefully over one arm of the couch as he leaned in to take a closer look at John. His colour was a little better, and his breathing no longer seemed quite as strained.  
  
“He hasn’t moved, or shown any sign of waking,” Mrs Hudson fretted.  
  
As if he’d somehow heard her, John chose that moment to stir. It was just the faintest movement of his hands, followed by a slight twitch of his head.  
  
“John?” Sherlock demanded sharply.  
  
One eye – the eye that wasn’t blackened and hidden behind the ice pack – opened ever so slightly. John made an unintelligible noise low in his throat, low and raspy and _furry_ in a way that made Sherlock’s spine prickle.  
  
“John,” Sherlock said again, and he _hated_ repeating himself, but at the same time it seemed the best option; a grounding of who John was, who and what he had to be – particularly with Mrs Hudson in the room. “Can you understand me? It’s very important that you try and communicate, and to stay awake, if you are awake.”  
  
John’s eye opened a little wider. The pupil was too dilated for Sherlock to be able to tell if the shape was what it should be.  
  
Then he _hissed_.  
  
Sherlock jumped, mind whirling. He had to cover for John at all costs. “He must be concussed – not making any sense - ”  
  
John hissed again…and it turned into Sherlock’s name, or a mangled, slurred version of it. “Shhh’lck.”  
  
A wave of relief threatened to turn Sherlock’s knees to jelly. “Yes, John. I’m here, as is Mrs Hudson. We’re back at the flat. Do you remember anything?”  
  
A pause, then John moved his head – a negation? Another twitch? Sherlock wasn’t sure. The motion dislodged the ice pack and the hastily-placed towel. Hastily, he scooped them up from where they’d fallen, then froze.  
  
The stripes had vanished from John’s hair. No, wait – perhaps not quite – but there was just the slightest hint of the markings, so slight that it could just be an echo of Sherlock’s memory, or pure imagination.  
  
“’M alrght,” John mumbled. Still slurred, but John’s voice, not the one that made Sherlock’s back twitch.  
  
“You’re not,” Sherlock contradicted, hiding his relief. “But you will be.”  
  
“Yes, you will,” Mrs Hudson echoed. “Particularly as I think that’s the door, and hopefully the doctor Sherlock sent for. Just lie still, and Sherlock, you stay with him. I’ll go fetch him up. Or is it a her?”  
  
“Him.” Sherlock knew he sounded terse, but he could not help himself. John was awake, and apparently back to a more normal state. But he was still injured, and it was still largely due to Sherlock’s own carelessness in failing to predict the entirely obvious outcome of John’s transformations. To his failure to take precautions, to think logically.  
  
To remember John’s transformations were a curse, not a gift. A curse he’d never bothered to understand, or even learn the origins of.  
  
That was not a mistake he would make again.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted July 14, 2016


End file.
